Free Wheel North is at the cutting edge of climate justice. On one level we are a cycling organisation, empowering people of all abilities to enjoy pedal power. Our flagship project is the Glasgow Green Cycling Centre, where we have hundreds of bikes, mostly of the kind rarely seen on UK streets, such as hand cranks, wheel chair bikes and bikes with many seats. These enable everyone to cycle, ranging from toddlers with dyspraxia to older people with dementia to quadriplegics. We do inclusion like no one else.
But on a deeper level, Free Wheel North is an instrument of social change, linking environmental issues to civil rights and challenging the inertia of a government that is all too invested in the profits of multinationals.
It was wonderful to welcome so many cyclists to our Centre on the 31st of October for Ride the Change. Food, music, cycling and the company of other humans is the meaning of public space. All too rarely do we get to enjoy that space; it has been handed to the automotive industry, relegating people to the margins, not to mention all other forms of life.
COP26 is a great opportunity not only to send a message to world leaders, but to demonstrate with real physical action what the world we demand looks like. On the 6th of November we joined the largest rally that has ever happened in Glasgow. Members of the FWN team pedalled the conference bike; a bike with seven sets of pedals. We joined campaigners Go Bike and Pedal on COP26 with their “this machine fights climate change” banners. The rain and the wind did not deter us, nor the 100,000 protestors who cycled or marched the 3 miles from Kelvingrove to Glasgow Green.